Mayors Memo Who let the dogs out?

 

Kia ora.

Going to the dogs, literally, in the next few weeks Kaipara District Council will be rounding up one of the parts of local government that exercises people most – dogs. Covering from rough huntaways to pampered pooches, our Kaipara District Policy on Dogs and Dog Management Bylaw is being reviewed from top to tail. Two hundred and forty submitters have contributed here, and nearly two days of hearings and deliberations will be followed by adoption by Council of a new bylaw before 30 June. With 399 pages of written submissions, there’s plenty for us to chew on and I thank everyone who’s speaking up – you’re not howling at the moon, every submission is being carefully considered.

Fur’s been flying on the subject of wandering dogs particularly in Dargaville town, and an urgent review of the Council services relating to wandering dogs and stock across Kaipara is soon to be reported to Council. We need everyone to be safe from any menace of roaming dogs and for wandering stock to be off our roads as winter comes, the nights become longer and feed on the long acre becomes more tempting.

Also tempting right now is the smart new Kaipara District Council website, with new interactive features that make us a leader of the pack. Take a look at kaipara.govt.nz and you’ll find plenty that’s top dog. These transformations are part of lifting service levels at Council. Look out in coming weeks for features that will allow you to check for exactly when rubbish collection days are on your street or road, a link to the new Mangawhai Community Plan website that’s a ‘single source of truth’ for the many projects there, or to directly log service requests for the roading team including uploading of your own photos of what’s happening on our roads. 

Speaking of roads, before winter comes our mild autumn presents just the right kind of damp roads for a busy season of road grading and heavy-metalling of our Kaipara roads. Not all of the 1200km unsealed network can be graded before the heavy rains come, but our road engineers have been unleashed again for the season with a prioritised programme of works for the three graders on Kaipara roads. Please keep patient as we continue to work on what some would call our doggone roading network, and drive to the changing conditions. You’d be barking up the wrong tree to think we’re aiming for anything less than Best In Show here.

Nga mihi nui.
Jason Smith